On Tuesday, a roundtable session in Accra was conducted to draught a statutory framework and guidelines for the courts to allow mediation for small offences between the victim and the perpetrator.
The conference, which was organised by Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (CHRI) with support from USAID's Justice Support System (JSS) Activity, brought together a wide range of criminal justice stakeholders to discuss the need to update the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Act and the Legal Aid Commission Act to include petty offender and victim mediation.
Ebo Dantse Benjamin, an ADR Hub lawyer, stated the Courts Act, 1963 (Act 459) Section 73 had already established that court criminal jurisdiction can promote reconciliation, encourage, and ease a settlement.